


Draco Malfoy Runs a Marathon

by PurpleSugarQuills



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy Swears A Lot, F/M, Freeform, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, marathon but not the sex kind sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28762491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleSugarQuills/pseuds/PurpleSugarQuills
Summary: After the war and Azkaban, Draco Malfoy finds himself bored, unemployable, filthy rich, and restless. Sometimes he drinks. Often, he feels sorry for himself. And then, one day, he decides to go for a run.A story of healing.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 73
Kudos: 372
Collections: Best of DMHG





	Draco Malfoy Runs a Marathon

**Author's Note:**

> This should be a crackfic, but apparently I take myself very seriously and this turned into something, well, slightly more serious. We’ll just go with I’m a ridiculous human who has vowed to never run another marathon in my life, but we all say that, don’t we?
> 
> No beta, because I could not subject any poor soul to reading this. Er, enjoy!

Draco Malfoy hates many things.

The sound of other people eating. The way Theodore Nott clucks his tongue when he disagrees with something. Gryffindors.

But this… He hates _this_ more than anything.

The parchment in his hand crumples, skewing the _We regret to inform you_ printed at the top of the letter. Printed on the top of _all_ the letters he’s received in the last handful of months.

For a long moment, he glares at the squat cluster mailbox like it’s responsible for his latest rejection.

Yes, Draco Malfoy hates many things, but he hates the sting of failure most.

And he should be used to it, probably. He’d been promised his whole life that he’d be the _fucking greatest_ at everything. But he was bested in Quidditch by the Boy-Who-Wouldn’t-Fucking-Die, second in school to the Girl-Whose-Hair-Lived, and when he’d taken the dark mark and tried his hand at being a Death Eater, well, he hadn’t been so great at that, either.

But two years in Azkaban and one potions mastery later, Draco Malfoy feels like his life should be better. He’s rich, attractive, intelligent...

His potions master calls him _beau gosse_ \--and she isn't the type to exaggerate things. Jacquelyn Dumais is a pretty blonde woman in her late fifties who reminds Draco a bit of his mother with her stylishly grey temples, posh French accent, and the way she dotes on him the moment he enters a room.

Except Jacquelyn Dumais is nothing like his mother. She’s Muggle-born, for starters. She has a shelf in her office that includes wine with a screw-off cap. No, his mother would be appalled by the comparison.

But more than those things, Madame Dumais _encourages_ him. She tells him he can do anything he wants. She lets him believe that any place would be so lucky to have him in their employ.

And yet…

Draco crushes the little slip of paper into a ball and tosses into the bin. It’s too small for the wad of paper, intended for cigarette butts, but this is a Muggle building so he can’t burn the damn rejection letter on the spot.

He knows Madame Dumais is going to ask him, and he’s going to have to tell her they don’t want to hire a former Death Eater. No matter that he served his time, received top marks in his apprenticeship, that he was fucking _trying_ to put his past behind him.

No, those things didn’t matter.

Standing there by the cluster of dented mail boxes, not sure what to do or what direction to go, Draco Malfoy decides to run.

It isn’t as poetic in practice as it sounded in his head. His Oxford isn’t breathable, his dragon leather shoes smack pavement in a rushed, inelegant rhythm. But he makes it to the end of his block and it's sort of freeing, like he’s escaping. Like he’s moving _toward_ something, not just running away.

When he returns to his flat, he takes a shower and changes his clothes. And when he goes to visit Madame Dumais, he asks her if she knows where any Muggle shops that sell running shoes might be.

Then, after she blinks back her surprise and gives him a store to visit, he tells her about the rejection from the potions group in Sussex.

The lines of her face deepen, and he knows she’s sad. She pities him, believes in him, and he should probably be happy that there’s one witch in the world who has his back. Only…

“I know I can’t stay here any longer,” he says conversationally. Like the words aren’t sand in his mouth.

“You can stay until you have a job lined up.”

He barks a laugh. “ _No one’s_ going to hire me, Madame Dumais. No one.”

Her red lips press to a tight, thin line, and then she exhales. “Where will you go?”

“Home.” Funny how the Manor doesn't feel like home anymore, but there isn't anywhere else that will have him.

He agrees to give it a month, and in that time he falls into a new routine:

Apply for jobs he knows he won’t receive. Assist in the potions lab with Madame Dumais. Lace up his trainers, slip on his athletic shorts, and run.

On Friday evening, he goes to a wizarding pub on the opposite side of the city. He meets a pretty witch with a short, sleek bob. She reminds him a bit of Pansy, but if he closes his eyes while she snogs him, maybe…

He doesn’t go home with her. He just sips his drink, and when he wakes up in the morning he chugs a sobering potion and doesn’t run.

And suddenly he doesn’t know himself anymore because he’s disappointed. Draco realizes his head isn’t as clear, his body isn’t humming with that euphoric feeling he’s come to rely on. He knows he’d rather run than drink himself stupid with Firewhiskey and shag a pretty witch.

So the next day, he runs. He makes it to the edge of the city and a red brick building with a funny slated roof. The day after that, he runs past the building and goes further. By the end of the week he can go further than that, but his knees hurt so he takes a break.

He stands in the shower beneath the spray of warm water, feeling the tension of his muscles that he’s broken down and rebuilt again. Thinking maybe other parts of himself can be made stronger that way, too.

A day of rest, and he’s ready to run again.

He learns that if he goes all the way to the pub the next town over, his nipples bleed.

Sometimes, his asscheeks chafe and he wonders why he’d ever wanted to run at all.

On a Thursday he turns left instead of right and discovers a park with water features and flower gardens and a half-dozen runners jogging circles around its paths.

The third time he visits, he stops by a bench and a Muggle man grins at him.

Draco blinks at the anonymity. This man doesn’t know at one point in Draco’s life he’d hated Muggles, that he detested Muggle-born wizards. This man just shakes his head and tells Draco that his knees aren’t what they used to be.

“But your pace, it’s fast,” he says.

Draco nods, just once.

The other man has hardly any hair left on his head. His nose is long, so long, Draco’s eyes follow the slope of it as the man asks him questions he doesn’t know the answers to.

_What’s your pace? What’re you training for? What’s your PB?_

“Ah.” Draco shifts his weight, the toe of one trainer poking the path below him. He lets the questions flit through his brain before forgetting them. “I don’t know. I’m just going for a run.”

The men talk about blisters and gel fuel and electrolyte recovery drinks and aches and ailments and Draco blinks.

“My, ah, my nipples bleed sometimes.”

“Ah, yeah. That’s the worst.” The one with the long nose nods. Draco feels a bit of solidarity with the Muggle runner.

The other one points to Draco’s shirt. “You should get a shirt that isn’t cotton.”

The first one, with the nose and sometimes bleeding nipples, nods. “I sometimes use bandaids, or BodyGlide.”

“BodyGlide?”

“Yeah, it’s a stick, you--” He pantomimes rolling something over his chest. “--like this.” 

Draco decides to see if there’s a potion he can make that does the same thing, only so he doesn’t have to buy a Muggle stick and rub it on his nipples. Or he’ll buy a shirt that’s not cotton. Maybe that will do the trick.

They talk about _marathons_ and shitting themselves and Draco hates these Muggle runners, but… Well, it’s the first time he’s ever heard other people talk about running, so he sticks around and stands there. If they think he’s dumb, they don’t say anything or cast him any strange looks.

When he runs all the way back to his flat there’s nothing in his mailbox.

Good. No rejections today.

But there’s always tomorrow.

At the end of the month, Draco bids farewell to his potions master. She gives him a bottle of wine to take with him. Her eyes are misty and her mouth wobbly, and he knows she’ll miss him so he takes the screw-top bottle without saying anything rude.

When he returns to the Manor there’s no Madame Dumais and her potions to keep his mind occupied. He brews during the day, continues to apply for jobs--only his mother is less encouraging and doesn’t understand why he wants to work--and then, he runs.

Part of him misses the familiar streets of Belgium--the winding lanes where he can get lost in his own thoughts.

But the trails surrounding the Manor are nice.

And it isn’t so different here. Kilometer one is always the worst, his head isn’t clear and he can’t focus his thoughts. The first five kilometers are always the hardest on his body, but then his mind clears, the fog in his brain lifts … His muscles and lungs know what to do and he settles into an easy rhythm. There’s a sense of relief. He forgives himself while he runs. His head feels different and he thinks that not everything was completely his fault.

He ventures into London one day to run in a park, and it’s just like the ones back in Brussels. Too many Muggles.

There’s an older woman with obnoxious neon socks that stretch all the way to her knees. Her teeth are very wide, her eyes kind. Draco knows she’s going to talk to him the moment he stops at the bench to re-tie his trainer.

As she talks, the man next to her starts stretching. He rests one of his legs on a bench. His shorts are far too short. Draco wants to sneer at him, turning his gaze away before he can see the other man's genitalia.

The woman is talking about the lottery. The marathon lottery.

There’s that word again: _marathon_.

Draco finishes tying and races off, faster than usual because he doesn’t want to talk to these middle-age Muggles running in a park.

But the words are singed in his brain. He goes to a running store in London and they want to _fit him_ for trainers like they suspect the ones on his feet might not be doing the job.

The trainers the eager young man selects for him feel like clouds beneath his feet. Draco frowns at them so he doesn’t risk turning the weight of his frustration on the bouncy clerk who's going _on and on_ about Draco’s arches and gait.

“Anything else I can get you?” the clerk asks. He’s tall and tan and built. So sodding athletic that Draco wants to hex him.

Only, you can’t do that in Muggle London so he simply stands in the new trainers and sighs.

“I’ll browse.”

He hopes that’s clear enough to be left alone.

Starting on one edge of the store, Draco selects stretchy fabrics that won’t make his nipples bleed. A couple pairs of new shorts.

He hadn't made himself clear to _all_ the employees of his want to be left alone, because then there’s a woman standing next to him. She has straight blonde hair and her mouth is moving, only she isn’t talking.

Draco’s muscles seize. She’s _chewing gum_. Loudly.

“Can I help you?” she asks around a mouthful of pink bubble gum.

“No.”

It's like he hasn’t said anything, what with the way she doesn’t leave him alone. She pops a bubble.

“You running distance?”

“A marathon,” he says, tasting the shape of the strange, unfamiliar word. He should really figure out what that is before he commits to it.

She nods. “Figured. Got that look to you. Whatcha need?”

Her accent… _American._ He squints at the strange way she spits out vowels.

“Everything.”

She grins. He thinks she might work off commission because she’s rubbing her hands together. “Follow me!”

She hands him a watch that tracks his kilometers and pace, a bottle of water that fits on his hand that houses a little pouch to hold belongings.

“Like your keys, phone…” she prattles on and on, listing things Draco had no use for. But maybe, with an extension charm he could carry his wand…

“Do you use fuel?” Another bubble pops.

When he only stares at her, she’s leading him toward the counter. She hands him jelly beans and goo you squeeze from a package directly into your mouth. She smacks her gum, shoving an obnoxiously bright pair of polarized lenses to the pile in his arms. Draco realizes he’s soon going to resemble every sodding Muggle in the park.

And the idea doesn’t detest him like it should.

The woman keeps smacking her gum and Draco decides maybe he’ll give up on running completely.

“You got any of this stuff?” she asks, nodding her head toward a wall that he’s fairly certain is just full of BDSM gear. She picks up a stretcher bar with handles on either side and his eyes go wide. There’s a gun with a fat ball on the end, she presses a button and the ball oscillates. His lips part. She sets it down and holds up a black cylinder that he doesn’t think would fit into any orifice...

“I don’t think I’ll be needing any of _that_.”

“You don’t need massage guns or foam rollers?” she asks, a thin brow arched high. He suspects she’s mocking him, but he isn’t sure what about. “You know, for sore muscles? You don’t get those?”

“A man in the park told me once when you run you just have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

She laughs. Pops her gum, shoves the cylinder into his arms. “Here. Buy a foam roller. You’ll thank me later.”

The next time he runs he’s armed to the teeth with Muggle contraptions and he hates the tan man who gave him the perfect shoes and the woman with the gum for the sunglasses and the watch that tell him at kilometer 16 he should take some goo and _fuck_ if it doesn’t recharge him and push him farther than he’s run before.

Draco decides that he wants more assistance, but… the woman at the shop was frightening and he doesn’t want to face her or her bubble gum again.

So this time, to figure out exactly what a _marathon_ is and how to do it, he decides to consult a book.

There’s a Muggle bookshop he passes on his runs sometimes, and the kind woman behind the counter is quick to show him where books on running are. She doesn’t linger, doesn’t ask him questions, and she’s the best Muggle he’s ever met.

When he grabs a half-dozen books at near-random, he turns and finds Hermione Granger staring at him.

Him, Draco Malfoy, at a muggle bookshop in his running shorts.

Granger drops the mountain of books she’d been clutching to her chest. It’s so loud every person in the store turns to stare at her, but she’s staring at him.

“Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?”

He looks around, like she could possibly be talking to someone else. A pile of books still scattered at her feet.

“What are you…” Her eyes dart from his bare legs and trainers and to the six books about marathon training he’s holding and he can watch her brilliant brain snap the pieces together. A brilliant brain that says only, “Oh.”

He moves toward the register where his favorite Muggle is sitting behind the counter reading, not bothering anyone, and he bets she didn’t even look up when Granger made a scene by dropping all those books on the floor.

When he sets them on the counter and fishes the Muggle money from his pocket, he realizes he hasn’t spoken a word to Granger.

And he also realizes she’s standing at his side, staring at him.

“Are you running a marathon?”

His eyes meet hers. “Not at the moment, no.”

Her teeth sink into her lower lip. Her teeth have been shrunk at some point, but he can't place when. They’re nice, her teeth. Her lips, too. Funny how without the poisonous ideas of blood purity he’s been fed since infancy, he's free to notice that she is very pretty.

Her hair hasn’t changed much, nor has the glare she casts him the longer he ignores her question.

“I hope to, eventually.” He inclines his chin toward the books.

“A marathon is a long distance.”

He nods, but he doesn’t know _how_ long, so he doesn’t say anything to give his ignorance away. Only a stupid bastard would sign themselves up for something unknown, and he is neither stupid nor is he a bastard.

“You have way too much Muggle money,” she whispers. Then she dumps her pile of books on the table next to his and he watches her pay.

They leave the shop at the same time--not _together_ just… at the same time--and Hermione stops walking to spin on her heel, facing him.

“Malfoy.” She bites her lip again. “Let’s have a cup of… Ah, a smoothie.”

He doesn’t know what a smoothie is, but there are Muggles in gym clothes dotting the place and everyone looks like they’re trying very hard to give off airs of athleticism.

Granger stands out against the sea of lycra and nylon in her soft blue cotton dress and cream cardigan. And her hair. So much hair...

They order smoothies and sit at a table near the window, Granger sucking pink liquid through a fat, pink straw with her puckered pink lips.

“I wasn’t sure if you drank tea or coffee or anything, you look so…” her mouth takes the shape of several words she doesn’t say. Finally done floundering, she settles on, “sporty.”

“Oh, I haven’t changed my diet. Except for these little packs of goo.”

She laughs. He hasn’t said anything particularly funny, but he wants to hear her laugh again.

“So why running?” she asks, tilting her head to one side and studying him like she hopes to find something in him.

Draco takes a sip of smoothie through a neon green straw. “At first, I don’t know. I’d just wrapped up my potions mastery--”

“You received your potions mastery?!”

He glares at her for interrupting, but she folds her arms and nods.

“That makes sense, actually. You were always good at potions.”

“I was good at _everything_.”

She snorts, and he isn’t sure why he's bothering with explaining this to her, since she’s the sodding Golden Girl. But she once punched him in the face, and he sort of likes that in a girl.

“Yes, well, it’s one thing to finish your potions mastery, it’s another thing entirely to try and return to England and be accepted into polite society again.”

Her eyes narrow, and he gets his first look at Determined Granger in so many years. He remembers how this bossy, swotty woman gets when she doesn’t agree with how things are handled. Knows how she stomps her feet and huffs and raises _bloody hell_.

“Are you going to let me finish my story?”

She puffs a breath, picks up her smoothie, and takes a long, noisy drink. “Yes--running.”

He sighs. “I was in Brussels--”  
  
She opens her mouth to say something, but snaps her lips back together at the sight of his glare.

“--and my potions master is like you, thinks everyone in the sodding world is good and noble and decent. Thought I’d get hired just by demonstrating my skill.”

“You did your time…”

“Granger--”

“I just don’t see how anyone could still be holding that against you. It isn't like you were…”

He can feel the frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. Can feel the bubble of disappointment that surfaces whenever he has to have this conversation.

“A Death Eater?” He lifts a brow, trying for mocking. He knows he’s missed the mark. His voice is flat and hard, and he feels tired. “I _was_ , Granger.”

“But you-- You were seventeen. And you didn’t even…”

“Yes, I failed at that, too, didn’t I?”

She bites her lip, brown eyes moving across his features like she’s still trying to figure him out, and he shifts under her appraisal.

“We’re going to be all here all day if you keep interrupting.”

“You have plans?”

He doesn’t.

“While I was in Brussels my potions master was having me apply for jobs that were never going to hire a former Death Eater, and at first, my runs were about pain. About my feet hitting the ground and releasing my anger, taking it out on the pavement until I was too tired to move.”

Her lips wobble. There’s pity in her eyes.

“Don’t feel _sorry_ for me, Granger...” He sighs, fingertips drumming on the side of his plastic cup. “But then… Well, then my runs became the only way I could clear my head.”

She's still Hermione Granger, so he doesn’t tell her _everything_. He doesn’t tell her that the longer he ran, the more out of his own head he could get. That the shame he felt for himself morphed into something different--something clear and new and maybe he _had_ been only seventeen, and he hadn’t been able to kill anyone and he’d seen all that blood on the castle floor and none of it looked muddy. It was all just red and senseless.

Then his aches and the sore muscles were broken down and repaired, again and again, and it was like other parts of him were being stretched and broken and then mended, too.

“It’s not uncommon, really.” She smiles at him, and there are those perfectly-sized teeth again. White. A kind smile and cupid's bow lips. “To push your body to its limits and your mental capacities... It’s a way of healing.”

 _Healing_. He hasn't thought of it that way. Was he healing? No, not likely. What did he need healing from? He can't place his finger on any one thing.

“It makes me feel better. And all the Muggles at the park keep going on about this London Marathon, so…”

Her eyes shoot wide. Excitement shining in a maelstrom of Firewhiskey and honey.

“And you want to run a marathon.” It isn’t a question. She's just repeating her thoughts to him. He blinks.

“I’d like to try. It’s a long distance, ah…”

Hermione Granger is a dependable swot; she absolutely _adored_ showing off what she knew.

“Forty-two-point-one-nine-five kilometers.”

“Right.”

And now he knows. But knowing the number, the distance still seems imaginary, intangible.

“It comes from the Greek legend of Philippides. In 490 BC, a messenger was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated. The story goes that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming, ‘we have won!’ before collapsing and dying right on the spot.”

Draco points his cup at her, his straw searching for its center of gravity, spinning wildly around the cup. “Are you trying to teach me something, Granger?”

“No.” She looks a little glassy eyed. “I’d like to help you.”

He didn’t ask for her help. But he doesn’t know anything about lotteries, so he supposes it couldn’t hurt to have her help.

“There’s a lottery,” he says.

“I can get you in.”

“Can you?”

She shrugs. “There are ways.”

He laughs. He suspects Hermione Granger is going to cheat the rules on his behalf.

He’s never liked her more.

  
  
  
  


……..

  
  
  
  


Two days later, Granger owls him to meet her at the smoothie shop.

He settles into the same table by the window. _Their_ table. He doesn’t order, just sits there, watching the door until she barrels through. Her arms laden with books and notebooks and stacks of paper. Her hair is a mess of curls rallying to get as far away from her head as gravity will allow.

She dumps the things she’s holding, scattering notebooks in every direction, and Draco can only blink.

“This is your schedule,” she says in lieu of a sensible person’s greeting. “I consulted a Muggle running coach I found online. His plans are supposed to be the best.”

He picks up one of the notebooks and flips it open. There’s a calendar inside with figures and numbers and dates.

“You’ll start Sunday morning.”

He stares at her. She’s an insane person. But at least he isn’t the only one.

He doesn't see Granger again until he’s enjoying himself at the Leaky with the people who refuse to leave him alone so he’s forced to call them his friends.

Blaise says something that isn’t funny and Theo laughs. Pansy rolls her eyes and Daphne threatens to call his mother. At this, Draco cracks a grin.

Before anyone can say or do anything else, Granger’s in front of them--in front of _him_ , really--and her hands are planted on her hips.

“You here to take away house points, Granger?” Blaise asks, surprised eyes blinking up from his Firewhiskey.

“Ten points from Slytherin for laughing too loud at a pub,” Pansy croons. She pitches her voice in a way that is no close imitation to Granger’s voice, but it makes Theo laugh anyway.

Hermione ignores them. “You shouldn’t be drinking. Not with your training ramping up tomorrow.”

His friends grow quiet. From across the bar, he can see her band of misfit war heroes staring on, watching the exchange with equal shock.

“I was going to rest tomorrow,” he replies. “Start Monday.”

She glares at him while he takes another sip from his glass. Funny how her eyes burn harder than the Firewhiskey.

“What’s got Granger’s knickers in a twist?” Theo asks, and though he sheaths his voice in whisper, it isn’t quiet. In fact, the words come out at the same volume of his regular tone.

_Loud._

“I’m running,” Draco responds, even if he knows it isn’t a real response.

“Oh, yeah.” And Theo nods. “You do that now.”

“I’m running a marathon. It’s a race--an event.”

“A race?! Hey, you might win it?!” Theo grins.

Draco shakes his head. “No, definitely not.”

“Then why do it if you’re already certain there’s a zero percent chance you’ll win?” Theo looks genuinely perplexed and Hermione snorts.

“It’s about winning against yourself. Forty-two kilometers is an extremely punishing distance. It’s a feat of mental and physical--”

“I can help,” Blaise offers. Draco hadn’t realized all his friends were still listening, but Blaise has set his tumbler of whiskey on the table and he’s appraising Draco’s form with a sort of calculated valuation that makes Draco shift uncomfortably in his chair.

“Yeah.” Blaise nods. “I’ll add you to my schedule. I do weight training sessions, Granger. It’d be good to get Draco some cross-training in. He could do with some core strength.”

Before he can object, Daphne's leaning across the space between them, poking the center of his ribcage. “I can help with your diet. I know it sucks. Eat a vegetable, Draco.”

Theo grins, showing lots of teeth. “I can keep you accountable. Daily check-ins and the like.”

A vein on his forehead throbs. “No.”

Pansy shrugs, clearly feeling left out. “I’m here for moral support, I guess. Though running is so…” Her nose crinkles, like she’s found a spot of muck on the red sole of her pump. “...pedestrian.”

Granger smiles at him, like this is a wonderful solution, but she doesn’t _know_ these idiots. He’ll tell her, later, that Theodore Nott should not be in charge of keeping any person accountable. That Daphne Greengrass once tried to live off of only bottled juice for an entire month. That _Pansy Parkinson_ should not be tasked with something like _moral support_.

“Take care, Malfoy,” Granger grins, and then she spins on her heel and ducks back into the table with Potter and the redheads and--

“Hey, is that Neville Longbottom?” Daphne says.

“It couldn’t possibly be,” Pansy snorts. Then her eyes narrow. “It is. But… But how’d Longbottom get so...?”

“Gorgeous?” Daphne wiggles her brows.

“I was going to say fuckable.” Pansy takes a sip of white wine, her eyes never straying from the table of laughing idiots on the other side of the pub.

“People change, Pans,” Blaise says, his voice flat. “Look at Draco here. Hey, Drake, care to tell us why Hermione Granger popped by to remind you of your morning run?”

No, he doesn’t care to tell. So he picks up his drink and takes a sip. And he thinks he does a fairly okay job of not spending the entire evening watching Granger laughing beneath the glow of pub lights with her friends.

  
  
  
  


……..

  
  
  
  


The Muggle running training program has rules and a timeline. It has _tempo runs_ and _fartleks_ and all sorts of things he doesn’t know the definitions of.

Draco runs until his feet blister. He heals them with magic and brews potions for sore muscles. He frowns at the foam roller and vanishes it so he doesn’t have to look at it any more.

His first injury is an agonizing pain that stretches from his hip to his knee.

When he tells Granger, she’s _at the Manor_ walking around like she hasn’t been tortured in the place.

She lifts her wand and casts a diagnostic spell, her face pinching like she’s a certified healer. She isn’t, but she’s bloody brilliant and he likes to watch her think, so he lets her assess him. Maybe she’ll play Mediwitch with him, later...

“It’s your IT band,” she surmises.

“Which means?” he tries, and fails, to not sound annoyed.

“It means you have weak glutes.”

Draco balks. “I do not have _weak glutes_!”

He turns and flexes them, and she glances at him, snorting out a lovely little laugh that she has to literally press down with the heel of her hand.

“They’re fine glutes, Malfoy. But there’s a muscle imbalance between strength of your legs and your--”

“Yes. I’ve heard you. My _weak glutes_.”

He doesn’t fucking have weak glutes. He _doesn’t_.

“I’ll tell Blaise. He can add some glute exercises,” he mumbles, and then he asks her to stay for tea.

  
  
  


……

  
  
  


The next time he sees Hermione Granger, she’s walking out of Flourish and Blotts--of fucking course she is--and he comes up to her because somehow he exists in a universe where he and Hermione Granger just pop over to say hello.

Only, she blinks and looks surprised to see him. She shakes her head, as if to shake off the sad, sallow expression she’s wearing. When she smiles at him, it’s tight and fake and Draco feels the concern pulling at his lips, his eyes ticking across her features.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

He waits for the truth. Not pushing, just… standing there.

“It’s everything,” she admits, voice quiet.

“Let’s get a drink.”

“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, Malfoy.”

He smiles at her. “The perfect time to sit and have a private conversation.”

When he hands her a Butterbeer and sits across from her at the little square booth pushed against the far wall, his knees knock against hers under the table.

“Did you throw yourself into helping me as a way to distract from your own problems?”

She grunts, a finger tracing circles against the condensation on her pint. “Probably. I like to stay busy. It helps.”

He doesn’t know what’s wrong, or how to help. But he asks:

“You want to go for a run with me?”

Her brown eyes are very expressive. Sad today, but still lovely.

“Sure,” she says, and then she laughs like the idea might not be so terrible after all.

  
  
  


…….

  
  
  


Hermione Granger meets him at a Muggle park. She looks cute--curls pulled back high on her head, running shorts showing off her slender thighs.

“Maybe go slow,” she bites her lip, “for me? I haven’t… It’s been a while.”

 _Merlin_ how he chooses to take her words out of context.

With a smirk and a wink, he promises to be gentle. The flush that blooms across the bridge of her nose is the most lovely thing he’s seen in ages.

When Hermione runs, she pants. Her cheeks get red. Her trainers slap the pavement in irregular intervals and she’s constantly going slower and speeding up only to slow down again.

Through staggered breathing, she shouts, “This is awful, Malfoy. I hate this!”

He laughs. Checks his watch. They’re going nearly three-minutes a kilometer slower than his normal jogs. He doesn’t tell her that. Instead, he tells her she’s doing great.

She glares at him. “I am not.”

It starts to rain and he pulls her under an awning. The rain pelts against the tin roof, amplifying the sound of the downpour to the point that he has to shout to be heard over the noise.

Hermione laughs; she shivers; she looks up at him with her wet hair plastered against her face.

Drops of water cling the nearly invisible spray of freckles across her nose.

Funny thing, hating the sound of people eating, Theo’s tongue clucking, Gryffindors, and failure. She’s beautiful and she’s a Gryffindor. The worst sort, too. But he definitely doesn’t hate _her._ He doesn’t think he’d mind hearing her eat, and he’s petrified of failing her.

After their run they shower at her flat. Not... together, though Draco does make a joke about splitting one that’s only a joke because she rolls her eyes. Then they change and go out to a wizarding restaurant in front of people who know who they are.

She snorts when he tells a joke. She tells him about how Harry and Ginny are, even though he doesn’t care. She asks if he’d like to split an appetizer with her and she chews very quietly. She asks about his friends, tells him about how she feels trapped at her desk job in the Ministry, not able to make any real, significant change. She tells him that she’s restless and that she wants a promotion but she doesn’t want to use her name as leverage.

He makes a face. “Why not? You’ve earned it.”

“I haven’t. Just like your name shouldn’t automatically close doors for you, mine shouldn’t open them for me,” she replies. The menu is comically large as she holds it close to her chest.

He shakes his head. It’s the single dumbest thing he’s ever done.

“It’s about _merit_ , Malfoy. My NEWTS and--”

He laughs. “You’re Hermione Granger. You did six-times more for the wizarding world by eighteen than most will do in their lifetimes. You deserve a promotion. You deserve whatever the fuck you want. Besides, you’re the smartest, most hard-working witch at that sodding place. They’d be _lucky_ to have you fighting for causes you believed on their behalf.”

She stares at him. He isn’t sure what she’ll say, if she’ll scowl or cry. He doesn’t expect her to bite her lip and ask, “How’s training going?”

“Fine.” He hums. “I think I’ll order wine.”

And he does. He goes with an obscenely expensive bottle that makes her mouth pop open in the most delicious little ‘O’. He wants to have her like that, later. But it’s more than that. He wants to convince her that she deserves the promotion. Kiss away her doubts. He wants to hear her inelegant snort when she laughs, to listen to her prattle on and on about books and Harry sodding Potter and whatever else she deems him worthy to hear about.

He doesn’t deserve any of it. He used to call her names, tried his best to make her feel small and insignificant. Took the side in a war that wanted to eradicate her kind. He isn’t deserving to be the one to encourage her now, to try and build her up…

But when he runs, he lets himself dream. He imagines apologizing to her for the name he used to call her. He imagines kissing the crown of her head and letting her know that it took him far too long to understand that being Muggle-born isn’t something to repudiate.

Madame Dumais owls him on a Thursday.

He reads the words, blinks, and then reads them again.

There’s a potions position opening at Hogwarts. She tells him that he’ll need three letters of recommendation. She says that she and Slughorn have attached their letters, and Madame Dumais promises that both will reach out to the Headmistress.

He reads one bit of the letter a third time, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs:

_Is there someone you might know in Britain with influence? Someone McGonagall won’t be able to ignore?_

He sets the letter down and runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead with a sigh.

  
  
  


……….

  
  
  
  


He takes this route because he knows she sometimes reads in this park on her lunch break.

She isn’t there, so he comes back the next day. Then the next. On the fourth day, he spies Hermione Granger munching on a sandwich as she reads a book while sitting on a park bench.

He slows to a stop in front her and catches his breath.

Draco can feel the light sheen of sweat on his brow, but he ignores it, focusing on the way Hermione remains ignorant to everything beyond the page she’s reading.

“Hello,” he says, and winces as the dumb word comes to a stop and he says nothing further.

She raises her eyes to meet him. “Oh. Hello, Malfoy.”

“I… I need a favor,” he says. He probably should’ve made smalltalk first. Told her she looked nice, asked how her day was going.

“Okay.” She closes the book and rests it in her lap, fingers curling around the cover. “Sure.”

She hasn’t even heard him out yet. He could be asking her something ghastly. Something dangerous. Maybe something she wouldn’t want to do--like recommending him as a teacher for impressionable children at the school that was her home for so many years.

He rubs the back of his neck. “On second thought, let’s say--you’ll agree if I manage to complete the marathon in two weeks.”

Her features fall. “No. Malfoy, completing the marathon is a goal for you. It’s something big and awesome to prove to yourself that you can do it. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I’m… Whatever you need, I’ll help.”

He sits beside her on the bench. His feet feel like lead, like someone’s hexed him and his movements are slowed down and painful. At her side, he unzips the pouch on his water bottle and procures the letter.

When he hands it to her, he watches the way her eyes move across the page. Her features don’t shift, and he clears his throat.

“Slughorn and my potions master have--”

“Oh, Malfoy.” She’s grinning at him. “Yes! Of course. I’ll write to McGonagall immediately.” Then her features set, her eyes shining with that sodding determination he used to hate so much. Now he loves it. It’s his very favorite expression. “I’ll write and then deliver it to her in person.”

He stretches his feet out in front of him, trying not to smile at his shoes.

“Thank you.”

  
  
  


…..

  
  
  
  


“Malfoy, would you…” She bites her lip. Whatever she asks, when she looks like that, he’ll do it. “Would you join me at tonight’s book club?”

He blinks. Well, he’d just thought _anything_. “Sure.”

Hermione Granger is in a book club with about eight other people. There’s a man with a mustache who laughs so fucking loud at everything anyone in the room says. A pretty young girl who nods and agrees with whatever the person talking is saying.

There’s Granger who is not short with or shy about any of her multitude of opinions.

And there’s Draco, who sips Muggle wine and didn’t read the book. Because he didn’t know this club existed until earlier that afternoon when Granger bit her lip and asked him to join her.

In the kitchen, he loads up a plate of appetizers and fills up a second glass of wine. One of the women appears behind him. He swears she’s Apparated, only he knows she’s a Muggle and so that’s impossible.

“Hermione’s never brought a friend before.”

He’s curious why he’s here, too. He pours a bit more wine into the glass. It’s inappropriately full for a Cabernet, but he’s at a Muggle book club with Hermione Granger, so he allows himself a pass.

When he returns, a woman with sleek dark hair is arguing with Granger. He nearly spins on his heel and leaves the room. Instead, he settles into the overstuffed sofa beside Hermione and offers her some of the food off his plate.

The dark haired woman sniffs in his direction, and Draco decides he doesn’t like her. The next time he comes, he’s bringing that screw-top wine Madame Dumais gifted him.

 _Next time._ Like he’s already planning to come back.

He listens to the group talk, giving his own opinion on occasion about the book he’s never read, and Hermione bites back a smile.

When they leave and start walking to the Apparition point, Hermione slips her hand into his and squeezes it.

He wonders if she’ll join him at the Leaky. Wonders if she’ll let him buy her a drink. If she’ll let him kiss her… He deserves it, putting up with _book club._

“Thank you for coming,” she says. Her nose is a little flushed. “I… My wizarding friends already know you. They’re supportive of our friendship, but they have preconceived notions about you.”

He nods. Potter, the Weasels, Longbottom… He couldn’t imagine they were thrilled their Golden Girl was spending so much of her time hanging around him.

“But my Muggle friends… To them, you’re just a guy. And I--” She shakes her head. “I thought it would be nice, to introduce you as you are now.”

“How I am now?” He lifts a pale brow.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Still very much a prat, but… But you’re different. You’re kind to me, and you have goals--real goals. That’s… I like that, Malfoy.”

“The marathon?”

“Yes. And the potions mastery and Hogwarts. You have discipline and patience--you listen to me talk on and on about books and you don’t complain. You--”

She blinks at him, the flush spreading from her nose to stretch across her cheeks. He wants to press his lips there. And against her mouth, down the slope of her neck, to pepper kisses from her navel all the way to the juncture of her thighs. He bets her cunt tastes sweet. He bets the sounds she makes are--

“I like you, Malfoy.”

He blinks. “I like you, too, Granger.”

“No.” Her eyes squeeze shut. She’s adorable. “I _like you_. Like… like.”

She’s the brightest woman he’d ever met, but _that_ was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. He laughs, loudly, and lifts his hand, running his thumb over her lower lip.

“You have an early run,” she whispers.

“I’ve given it up. Completely done running.”

She laughs. “The marathon is in two weeks. This is your last week of training before drop week, so you really need to--”

He kisses her, and she’s still. Then both her hands close around the fabric of his shirt, bunching the material and anchoring herself to him, and she kisses him back

  
  
  


…….

  
  
  
  


He’s in a corral. Like cattle. They didn’t even hide it, calling it a _corral._

Draco’s surrounded--engulfed in a sea of Muggles. They bounce on their toes, stretch their arms high over their heads, make small-talk with him.

The marathon begins with the crack of a gun. Music plays, a woman speaks into a microphone, encouraging them. She tells him he is bloody brilliant, but he already knows he fucking is.

Kilometer one, and there are still way too many people around him. He hates this. This is the worst idea he’s ever had. It’s early, the crowd is thick.

Kilometer five, always the worst bit. But he can do this. He’s pushed past this point countless times.

By kilometer seven, his head is clear. He thinks of his progress, his goals. He wants a job, something to do. A purpose and a career.

He wants… he glances at his watch. He shouldn’t push his pace--not if he wants to keep his splits negative… Draco sighs.

Kilometer eleven and the cluster of runners has spread thin, and no one’s close enough that he can hear their breathing or their music. He can just exist; he can just run.

At seventeen kilometers in, he drinks some goo. It’s supposed to taste like lemon/lime but it tastes like neither of those things.

Twenty-eight kilometers. He feels tears burning the back of his eyelids. A strange thing, these tears. He isn’t sad, isn’t in any pain. He just… His chest feels light, his mind clear. He feels like he can do this.

When he passes the sign for kilometer thirty-five, he knows he hates this. He’s never going to do it again. When he’s crossed the finish line, he’s going to murder every fucking person who helped him. Those Muggles in the park, the lady with the gum at the shop, Hermione Granger, Blaise, Theodore _fucking_ Nott…

Kilometer thirty-eight and he hears his name. His eyes seek out the crowd, and there by the metal fencing perimeter stands Theo, Pansy, Daphne, and Blaise. All four of them hold onto a sign that spells out his name in glittering letters. They wave like idiots and he can’t help the twitching of his mouth, his endorphins and the crush of sentiment has him grinning back at them.

Kilometer forty, and he spies Granger watching him from the crowd. She waves, he nods at her. He wants to ask her if she wants to grab a milkshake with him after. Maybe eat a burger or five.

One kilometer left. Then half. One fourth. The time drags on, the distance stretches before him. Infinite, and yet… not.

He picks up speed, legs pumping, muscles burning and feet aching. He crosses the finish line and he has to keep. fucking. walking. Wasn’t this thing over kilometers ago?! He walks some more, a woman hands him a banana. He stares at the fruit, wondering if this is some sort of Muggle prize.

Then there’s a sports drink handed to him next. Red. Gryffindor red. A muscle at the base of his jaw jumps.

Finally, before he’s free, a smiling woman places a lanyard with a fat medallion around his neck. It’s heavy.

The long, winding, never-ending walk opens and all the people are back. There’s a crowd. Runners, their friends and families. People taking photos, biting into their medals with their teeth. He stares at the banana first, then the medal around his neck, and frowns.

His legs feel numb, except for an ache at his right knee that he stretches on the spot, grimacing. He’s never doing this again. Not to double all the galleons in his vault. Not if he were guaranteed the position at Hogwarts. Not--

“Malfoy!”

Hermione leaps into his arms, colliding with his chest and making him stumble on his feet. Her arms wind around his neck, fingers slipping through his damp hair and pressing against his scalp. He holds her and she hugs him, nearly knocking him off balance. He wonders if she knows how difficult just standing upright is after a marathon.

“You did it!” Her lips move against the side of his neck. “You were incredible!”

And for the first time in so long, he feels like he’s won.

 _Fuck._ He wants to sign up for this fucking this again next fucking year...


End file.
